Success didn’t come overnight…
NO a team formed out of a few underage teams that had tasted a bit of success. We got nowhere in Armagh for a long time and then we won an U14 league which was the first trophy to come to Mullaghbawn for 25 years.
We were managed by Charlie Grant, a real passionate club man, and people like John Crawley who put in a lot of work when some might have said that the juice wouldn’t have been worth the squeeze. They stuck with us and we went on to win a minor championship (under Joe McNulty) and three U21 championships under Peter McDonnell.
We were very fortunate. We had a team coming through and we had people who were already there like Neil Smyth and Colm McParland who would have been county players.
When I started the senior team was in Division Four and we won the junior championship, then an intermediate (1992) and we went on to Division One football and in 1995 we won our second senior title (the first was 1964).
The journey we had was amazing. Most teams win the Ulster title having been in Division One for a long time whereas we came from Division Four and within 10 years we were Ulster champions! I can’t think of any other club that has done that.
The range of medals that some of our boys have… When you think that in your career you have a junior championship medal and an Ulster club championship medal… It is unheard of.
The calm before the storm
MULLAGHBAWN reached the Armagh senior championship final in 1994 but were beaten by a more experienced Clan na Gael side who were the reigning champions. That taste of the big time only served to whet their appetite for the following season.
“We definitely under-played it that year,” says Benny.
“We were in the game but the Clans had won county titles before and they would have had that bit of belief and know-how to get through a final. But what it did show us was that we weren’t far away and we didn’t have anything to fear in ’95.”
Turning Point
I DON’T think there was a turning point as such it was more that after the success we’d had at minor etc and then coming up through the leagues, this was a team that had got used to winning. We had belief in ourselves and we had a great bond.
We had come up together from zero to hero and we were clearing hurdles we never had before. We were a young team too and we were well coached and very committed. When you add that all together along with how we played in the final defeat in ’94, we realised that a senior title wasn’t beyond us.”
Crossmaglen, still a couple of years away from their period of dominance, were beaten in the early rounds of the 1995 Armagh championship, then St Peter’s in the semi-final and Armagh Harps 0-10 to 1-5 in the final.
Benny recalls: “We knew that Armagh was a championship that no club was really standing out in and with Peter McDonnell in charge we had one of the best young managers in the country so we were confident that year.”
Why stop at Armagh?
WITH an Armagh title under their belts, Mullaghbawn doubled down and refocussed on the provincial crown.
“A lot of clubs win their county title and then don’t go on,” says Benny.
“I’m sure that when the other teams in Ulster were looking at the draw and they saw ‘Mullaghbawn’ (or Cuchullainn’s as we were known) they would have been saying: ‘Here, I hope we get them’.
“We could have gone into it thinking we had achieved our dream and we did celebrate winning Armagh but we were always thinking of the next round. We had achieved something that had already been achieved in the club in 1964 and now was the time to achieve something more, that’s the way we approached it.
“It was always the next game and we got Cargin in the first round. We would have been evenly matched and we got through it and then, all of a sudden, you’re into an Ulster semi-final against a massive name in Castleblayney who had the likes of ‘Nudie’ Hughes and boys like that. We beat them in Newry and once we tightened them we knew we had a chance to do something very special.
“Prior to the game we would have been a bit in awe of ’Blayney. They would have had the teamsheet that people would have been talking about and we would have been going into the game as underdogs. That tag always sat well with us and we used it to our advantage (and I’ve been on the other side of that when you’re hot favourites and it goes against you).
“So we always felt we were in a good position going into the game even though we had a very small panel. Rory McDonnell had to play in that game six weeks’ after he’d had a hernia operation. It would be unheard of today but that is the type of thing I remember – Rory drove himself to an extent that players nowadays would not be asked to do and it took that because we weren’t a big panel.”
The last kick of the game
1995 Ulster senior club championship final: Mullaghbawn 1-11 Bailieboro Shamrocks 2-5 (Cavan)
IT was a final that went, literally, to the last kick of the game. There was confusion at the death with the Mullaghbawn players celebrating despite the ball being in the back of their net
Benny explains the bizarre conclusion: “It was a strange game. We were eight or nine points up at half-time and coasting and then towards the end of the game we were haemorrhaging scores.”
Then there was ‘the goal that never was’.
“We were three points up and Pat McEnaney (referee) gave them a 21-yard free and told them it was the last kick of the game,” Benny recalls.
“We were all on the goalline and I stood in front of our line. Their forward drilled it and if I hadn’t got it would have hit another Mullaghbawn man. Anyway it hit my elbow and bounced back out and the boy pulled on it and hit the roof of the net with it. Bailieboro were celebrating (thinking they had salvaged a draw) but I was already under the stand at Clones celebrating. People couldn’t understand what I was celebrating for when they had just scored a goal but Pat applied the letter of the law – the free was the last kick of the game and after it hit me and came back out the game was over.
“It was a strange ending and it probably doesn’t sit well with Bailieboro but it sits very well with us.”
That winning feeling
PEOPLE ask me about my footballing life and I was fortunate to achieve substantial things in my career as a chunky, less-than-physically-fit athlete.
When you do it with your club, there is something extra-special because these are the guys you went to school with, these people are with you all of your life, you meet them daily. It is 25 years this year since we did it and we’ll be meeting up at some time, Covid-19 permitting, but I know every time we meet it’s like we’ve never been apart.
It’s a very special thing. We were training a slogging around Slieve Gullion, we were doing training that no other team, even county teams, were doing. We would have been on Slieve Gullion on Easter Sunday running and I mean running. Management often don’t get enough credit but the management team we had that year was brilliant – we were fitter than any other club team in Ulster and we had great players.
We came from Division Four under the radar but be in no doubt we were in great shape that year and that was thanks to the dedication of our management and the dedication of our players. If you don’t buy into it, it won’t happen and the commitment was that of a county team.
There was no stone left unturned in our preparation for all our games and that’s probably why we got there.
You look at the great teams who have been county champions for years but haven’t been able to win an Ulster title. Look at Kilcoo last year, a brilliant side that dominated Down for so many years but only won their first Ulster last year.
You think of how long they were knocking on the door and we only knocked on it once and we were very fortunate that it opened.”
The players
OF course Benny went on to win the Sam Maguire with Armagh in 2002 and there were three others from Mullaghbawn on the team in Kieran McGeeney and Enda and Justin McNulty. So did the county players make the difference?
“No. I would go as far as saying that there were more key players outside of the county men,” Benny answers.
“I’m talking about the likes of Colie Burns, who played full-back for us. Some people in Mullaghbawn wouldn’t even know Colie he’s that quiet but he was a colossus at full-back.
“Then our captain, Fergal McDonnell, who was one of the hardest men I ever played with. Colm McParland in the middle of the field who had stints with the county team and as a club player you’d struggle to find anybody better. Then there were people like Declan Crawley up front who could score and hit frees… There were so many good men so I wouldn’t say that the county players carried us through. It was good to have them of course but we had a group of players there who were just as tough, teak-tough, and as hard and as committed as any county player.
“I will always feel very proud and privileged to play with them, they were boys who literally gave their all for us and a lot of them are still involved with the club.”
Defending the crown
IT was hard to match the commitment and dedication we’d put in the previous year. Crossmaglen were building and we played them early on in the championship in Silverbridge. We were very evenly-matched on the night, it came down to a couple of points and they won it and we all know the history of Crossmaglen since then.
But I look back on it as the journey from Division Four to Ulster club champions and I’ll argue with anybody about any club that has made a journey as far as that. I don’t think there’s a club out there that has done it.
Flight BMI 7432 to Belfast International Airport has been cancelled…
THE next step of course was the All-Ireland series and the new Ulster champions were drawn away to London’s Tara Gaels in the All-Ireland quarter-final.
“I have to say that socially-wise we had the greatest 12 months of our lives,” says Benny.
“We trained together, we bonded together and we partied together. We went to London for that match and it was abandoned because of fog in Ruislip so they switched it to a pub pitch.
“We got changed in the toilet of the pub and played the game. It should never have happened but it was coming up to Christmas and they had expense and fixtures and all that to take into account so it went ahead.
“I couldn’t see the 45-yard line, I couldn’t see who I was kicking the ball to but we won eventually. We had a couple of quick pints and then we had to get back to the airport. We were sitting in the airport bar having a good oul time waiting for the flight and I was standing at the bar and then: ‘Ding-dong (on the tannoy) Flight BMI 7432 to Belfast International Airport has been cancelled…’ This roar went up, this cheer from 40 Mullaghbawn men sitting in the bar. The barman didn’t know I was with them and he just went: ‘That’s the first time in 30 years I’ve ever seen anybody celebrating a flight that’s been cancelled.’
“We were taken back to the pub we’d just left in London and we got put up in a hotel, so you can imagine the night we had. Those are the nights and those are the stories you don’t forget.”
Carlow’s Eire Og eventually ended Mullaghbawn’s run at the All-Ireland semi-final stage. The Leinster champions led 0-8 to 0-2 at half-time and although Mullaghbawn reduced the deficit to three points with eight minutes remaining, four late points in the closing stages saw Eire Og make the final. The defeat doesn’t take the gloss of an unforgettable year for Mullaghbawn, how could it?
“It was a great time to be involved in football,” says Benny.
“There was craic and commitment as well and whilst we did love the social end of it we were very committed too. It was great to be part of.”
